89 minutes – Comedy
Release date: September 30, 1971
Canadian distributor: Alliance Releasing

This poster for Rip-Off was scanned from an original in The Northernstars Collection.

The interesting thing about this little movie is that it works better now as a piece of nostalgia than it did at the time of its release telling what was then a contemporary “slice of life” story. Back then, some of the scenes were almost unwatchable, probably due to the embarrassment of the audience recognizing themselves up there on the screen. Rip-Off is a story about a group of friends in their last year of high school. Set firmly in the age it was shot, the kids decide to set themselves apart from the rest and so set out to prove they are indeed different from their friends and from other generations. They try filmmaking, forming a rock band, and starting a commune on a piece of land Michael (American actor, Don Scardino) inherited. The subsequent trip to the country and ultimate disillusionment become the overriding theme of the movie and, somewhat predictably, in the end the young people are dismayed to discover they are not as different as they would like to be.

Wyndham Wise reviews Rip-Off.